Extended Aftermath
by kahlen369
Summary: AU season 7. When Robin is forced to go see Kevin in therapy, it's for the same yet markedly different reasons. "Life is just one extended aftermath of the day we were born." Robin is forced to deal with the fall-out of it all. Warnings: sexual and physical assault
1. Prologue: Robin

**Extended Aftermath**

* * *

Summary: AU season 7. When Robin is forced to go see Kevin in therapy, it's for the same yet markedly different reasons. _"Life is just one extended aftermath of the day we were born." _Robin has finally been forced to deal with the fallout of it all.

Warnings: This story goes into some detail about sexual and physical assault, but mostly about its aftermath. It also contains language, drug/alcohol use and other sexual content.

* * *

_"Life is just one extended aftermath of the day we were born."_

* * *

Robin Scherbatsky didn't need therapy.

Therapy was stupid and pointless, just something to sucker in repressed housewives and rein in the more trigger-happy teenage sociopaths. No matter what all her friends thought, she didn't need this. This was nothing but a waste of time and money. A bottle of scotch, a case of cigars and a day at the shooting range: that was her therapy.

Okay, so maybe that was the healthiest way to deal with her problems, but it worked. It had worked just fine for all these years, after all. Why change something that works? They didn't go around messing with the Colonel's recipe, and she didn't go around messing with her unique version of therapy.

The point was Robin Scherbatsky didn't need therapy. She could handle her own problems. Just like she didn't need some brave knight to save her from her tower, she didn't need some dick with a few fancy degrees telling her how to feel.

Of course, her friends hadn't agreed at all. She blamed their American upbringing.

They had staged a total of five interventions for the topic. It was certainly a new record for their intervention-happy group, and it completely blew out of the water Barney's record of three separate interventions for his more dangerous magic tricks, though that had been, admittedly, spaced out between a few months and not a few weeks like hers had been.

When the interventions didn't work, like some messed up form of the Five Stages of Grief, they each resorted to reasoning, begging, bribing, guilting and blackmailing to try to get her to agree. Marshall presented her with charts and bar graphs that showed the statistics and projections proving the reliability of therapy. Ted pulled out the sad puppy look that had once gotten her to agree to sleep with him. Barney bribed her with everything he could think of, from aged scotch to limited edition guns to ridiculous amounts of cash. Lily used the same patented techniques that 1950s sitcom mothers had perfected and milked her surrogate mother figure role for all it was worth. Katie threatened to reveal every dirty little secret she'd uncovered via her teenage diaries.

Still, she had remained steadfast in her refusal. Even under the combined weight of all their techniques, she'd still refused to go to see a therapist (a small, dark, terrible part of her wondered why she hadn't fought half as hard during assault itself, but she ignored that voice like she always did). She would stick to her guns, even if it was the wrong answer-especially if it was the wrong answer-just like a real American would (_wasn't that right Barney? Maybe I'll finally become a real boy_).

In the end, like always, she was her own worst enemy, her own downfall. Despite her best attempts, she'd ended up in therapy—court mandated therapy, at that—after she lost control in the worst possible way and physically assaulted some random guy at the bar.

Her friends had probably rejoiced when they found out what happened (they were nearly always just the right mix of drunk and crazy for that—they hung out at a bar day in, day out for a reason, and it definitely wasn't the food), even if they were nothing but gently supportive and sympathetic when they faced her (if she cared to think too deeply about it, that might've been worse—she could handle I told you sos and petty childish celebration; this muted, mature understanding just made her feel like an stupid underdeveloped twelve-year-old).

So here she was sitting directly across from some stranger she was supposed to spill out her guts to because she paid them (and seriously, how did no one else see how ridiculous that was?). Understandably, she wasn't exactly overflowing with happiness to be here.

"I hope you realize I'm only doing this because my friends made me." Robin told him flatly, not bothering with pleasantries. If she was going to be paying him to listen to her anyway, there was no real reason to pretend to be polite.

"Your friends must care about you greatly." He said, completely disregarding the venom in her voice.

Robin ignored the urge to look away, forced down the instinctual flinch at such direct eye contact.

"They worry too much."

"Why do you think that?" He asked, voice carefully neutral.

She wanted to hit him, because that was such a cliché therapist thing to say. But she didn't, because that was the whole reason she was here, wasn't it? She'd assaulted some guy because she couldn't control her emotions, because she couldn't control herself anymore. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't do anything right (she thought back to the bottle of sleeping pills she'd once swallowed whole but still managed to survive, all those years ago, and how the first thing her father had told her was what a disappointment she was).

"Why do you think your friends worry too much?" He repeated (gently, like he was afraid of startling her, and she hated him all the more for his kindness) when she still hadn't answered him.

"Because I don't need this," she answered honestly.

(and the small, dark, terrible part of her knew that it was because it was all too late)


	2. Prologue: Barney

**Extended Aftermath**

* * *

Summary: AU season 7. When Robin is forced to go see Kevin in therapy, it's for the same yet markedly different reasons. _"Life is just one extended aftermath of the day we were born." _Robin has finally been forced to deal with the fallout of it all.

Note: All quotations at the start of the chapter are my own creation (so no need for those pesky disclaimers).

Warnings: This story goes into some detail about sexual and physical assault, but mostly about its aftermath. It also contains language, drug/alcohol use and other sexual content.

* * *

_"There is no such thing as right or wrong, only the truths and lies we choose and refuse to acknowledge."_

* * *

Barney was worried. That was a huge understatement. Going out of his mind with worry, would be a bit more accurate. Truthfully, he didn't think the English dictionary had words that could properly describe the well of emotions he had for Robin Scherbatsky at the moment.

He had nightmares, almost every night, about what happened to her. There were bags under his eyes that he had to cover up with concealer every morning. It wasn't even very effective, considering the concerned looks his friends kept shooting at him (when they weren't shooting those same looks magnified at Robin).

The only one who didn't seem to notice anything wrong was Robin herself, which really wasn't surprising at all. Denial had always been Robin's go-to defense mechanism. He remembered all too well the morning after of their first night together. In spite of his wealth of experience, he'd been the one floundering about in awkwardness while she'd shifted so automatically into normalcy. Then, he'd wondered if that hadn't the first time something like that had happened to her, with the way everything just seemed to come so instinctually. Now, he knew that was just the way Robin dealt with things. She forced herself into normalcy until she convinced herself and the ones around her it was real.

He was king of denial-that he didn't deny-but somehow, out of the two of them, he was the one more honest with himself. Considering he spent years convinced _Bob Barker _was his _father_, it said a lot about the depth of her denial. It said a lot about the depth of her trauma that she would cling so desperately it.

But the thing he'd learned about denial was just how easily it could fail. Like a house of cards, the slightest movement could send it crashing down. He'd learned that when Lily had found the tape of him singing to Shannon, when a chance encounter with Rhonda at the gym had revealed the truth of his first time, when a museum guard proved that his father had been his Uncle Jerry the whole goddamn time (and not Bob Barker at all). Denial only made everything worse, only made the pain hurt so much more because you'd been avoiding it the whole time and it'd itself built up over the wait.

Barney didn't make a habit of announcing it, but he'd tried therapy, more than the few times he'd once implied to his friends. Therapy was the reason why he was now more honest with himself than Robin was. Maybe he still lied to his friends, still hid behind a mask when he faced the outside world, but he'd stopped lying to himself.

Therapy could really help Robin, if she'd just let it. He knew she needed the help, especially after what happened. But he also knew just how stubborn she was, and he knew she was the kind of person who would refuse a life preserver when she was drowning just because of her pride. Even though he hoped against hope that she would grab on, the part of him that knew Robin—knew her better than anyone, including possibly herself—knew that she would rather let herself drown, and he was terrified.

He'd tried to make her see, but she refused to even look in his direction.

So he became the Barney she wanted to see: the womanizing, laser-tag obsessed, crazy friend who was nothing short of Awesome incarnate. So he did everything he could, up to and including painful-in more ways than one-slapstick comedy, to try to get her to laugh. So when he tried to get her to go to therapy, he didn't tell her all the reasons it could help her by telling her the way it had helped him. He'd tried to bribe her instead—with money, scotch, cigars, hockey, just about everything he could think of-because that was the only thing she would allow him, the only thing she expected of him, the only thing she _wanted_ from him (love was like a poison to her, the greatest magic trick: saying the word _I love you_ could make her disappear into thin air, like a mirage in the middle of the desert, all false hope and leaving despair).

Because he was so far gone, he would really do just about anything she wanted, even if it hurt him and her in the process-which really, just showed how messed up they _both_ were (and just how much therapy he _still_ needed, because he might've been better than he was before but he was still half-broken).

When she did finally go to therapy, it wasn't because of anything he or the others did, but because of her own actions (even if it wasn't necessarily because of her own choice). He really shouldn't have been surprised. No one could force Robin Scherbatsky to do something she didn't want (except someone had—and wasn't that the whole problem here?).

The point was, in the end, he hadn't been able to help her at all. He shouldn't have been so surprised. If life had taught him anything, it was that no matter how hard he tried, he could never do the right thing when it came to Robin Scherbatsky.


	3. Prologue: Lily

**Extended Aftermath**

* * *

Summary: AU season 7. When Robin is forced to go see Kevin in therapy, it's for the same yet markedly different reasons. _"Life is just one extended aftermath of the day we were born." _Robin has finally been forced to deal with the fallout of it all.

Note: All quotations at the start of the chapter are my own creation (so no need for those pesky disclaimers).

Warnings: This story goes into some detail about sexual and physical assault, but mostly about its aftermath. It also contains language, drug/alcohol use and other sexual content.

* * *

_"The help we don't ask for is often the help we need the most."_

* * *

"I'm fine."

Lily was really starting to hate that phrase. She'd always hated it, really, always thought it sounded so false. After all, when did anyone actually use that phrase sincerely? Never—people only used it when they were trying to cover up a situation that was blatantly _not_ fine. And Robin was most definitely_ not_ fine.

It was obvious to anyone who really knew her that Robin wasn't anywhere near as _fine _as she pretended she was. Her smile was always just a bit too bright and her laugh just a bit too loud to be sincere. They were her fake newscaster smiles, the kind that didn't reach her eyes. The fact that she was using it on them—that she needed to use it on them at all-made Lily want to cry and scream at the same time.

Sometimes, Lily wanted to just slap her best friend for being such an idiot.

Mostly though, Lily wanted to be able to hug her tight and tell her everything was going to be fine, for real this time. But she couldn't even do that. She couldn't even comfort her best friend because her best friend wouldn't let herself be comforted. She really shouldn't have been surprised. When it came to her problems, Robin always deflected, always ignored, and always pretended. The only difference was, this time, her technique was failing miserably.

Though everyone was acting like they normally would-and in Barney's case, about ten times crazier than he normally would (Lily swore it was like the guy could only function in extremes)—but there was such an obvious underlying tension to everything they did. The only thing they had accomplished in their forced attempts at normalcy was highlighting just how wrong everything actually was.

The group was crumbling, falling apart, and she couldn't seem to do anything to stop it.

It made Lily want to tear out her hair in frustration. The thing was, Lily didn't have a lot of friends. She had the people at work she talked to or gossiped with during lunch breaks. She had her high school friend Michelle who she still occasionally called or met up with. But these weren't the kind of friends she could tell deep dark secrets to and who would tell theirs in return. They weren't the kind of friends who with stick with her though good times _and_ bad. They weren't the kind of friends who would become her children's honorary aunts and uncles. They weren't like The Gang (as Marshall liked to call it).

Maybe that was why she'd clung to the group so hard, why she tended to be distrusting of anyone who tried to worm their way into the group, why she'd sabotaged Ted's relationships time and time again. Everything she did, she did out of love. Lily wasn't unaware of her more manipulative tendencies. She knew she sometimes skated the edges of moral boundaries when she meddled in her friends' lives. But unlike when she was a teenager, this time, all her manipulating was all for a good cause.

Like she had once told Barney, anytime she saw a confused little boy in a corner trying to eat the lefty scissors, she just had to help the poor bastard. Maybe it was the kindergarten teacher in her projecting on the gang, but she couldn't help but think of her friends as though they were her students. The fact that they had a worrying tendency to act like six year olds when it came to big emotional issues definitely didn't help.

When she saw one of her best friends about to make a big mistake in their lives, she couldn't just stand by and do nothing. She had to help them, even if they didn't want her help-hell, _especially_ if they didn't want her help, because just like a little kid, they would stubbornly, pettily cling to their mistakes just to prove her wrong.

Robin was _not_ fine. No one in the group was _fine_.

But this time, she didn't have any idea how to fix things. This time, it felt like she was the six year old in the corner chomping away on the lefty scissors because he didn't know what else to do. It was a terrible feeling. She felt stupid and weak and useless-and this must've been what Robin was feeling, but a hundred times worse (God, she was just a _terrible_ friend).

Even though she liked to think of herself as the one who was always saving her friends from one huge mistake or another. In a lot of ways, it was her friends who had been saving her. Because she didn't have a lot of friends like them, people who saw through her masks, saw through her words and saw the real her-the one who could be petty, bitchy, shrewish and manipulative-people who loved her in spite of that. She wasn't sure where her life would be right now if she hadn't met Marshall and Ted that day at college. Maybe she would've traveled the world and become a famous artist like she'd always dreamed. Maybe she would've gotten back together with Scooter when they met up again and they were both still single. Or maybe she would've had a series of meaningless flings as she flitted from country to country (maybe even getting that lesbian experience she'd always wanted).

But she doubted she would've been half as happy as she was here, married to Marshall with a baby along the way and Ted, Barney and Robin all just one phone call away. That one summer in San Francisco has been enough to prove that. Because achieving her dreams wasn't anywhere near fulfilling without people who loved and understood you to enjoy it with. So she owed her friends a lot, and she tried to repay it by doing her best to make their lives better.

So Lily hated how Robin was pretending everything was fine, hated how everyone and everything was starting to fall apart.

Most of all, she hated how she couldn't seem to do anything to fix it.


End file.
